Part 13 (1/2)
”Worldly and corrupt people ask me to do miracles, to prove my power to them. But the proof I bring to the world is a new vision and a new hope.”
”Oh, I see! Your religion! May I ask about it?”
”You are the first; the world will follow you. Say to the people that I have come to understand the nature and causes of their mobs.”
”Mobs?” said the puzzled young blood-hound.
”I wish to understand a land which is governed by mobs; I wish to know, who lives upon the madness of others.”
”You have been studying a mob this morning?” inquired the reporter.
”I ask, why do the police of Mobland put down the mobs of the poor, and not the mobs of the rich? I ask, who pays the police, and who pays the mobs.”
”I see! You are some kind of radical!” And with sickness of soul I saw another headline before my mind's eye:
WEALTHY CLUBMAN AIDS BOLSHEVIK PROPHET
I hastened to break in: ”Mr. Carpenter is not a radical; he is a lover of man.” But then I realized, that did not sound just right.
How the devil was I to describe this man? How came it that all the phrases of brotherhood and love had come to be tainted with ”radicalism”? I tried again: ”He is a friend of peace.”
”Oh, really!” observed the reporter. ”A pacifist, hey?” And I thought: ”d.a.m.n the hound!” I knew, of course, that he had the rest of the formula in his head: ”Pro-German!” Out loud I said: ”He teaches brotherhood.”
But the hound was not interested in my generalities and evasions.
”Where have you seen mobs of the rich, Mr. Carpenter?”
”I have seen them whirling through the streets in automobiles, killing the children of the poor.”
”You have seen that?”
”I saw it last night.”
Now, I had inspected our ”Times” and our ”Examiner” that morning, and noted that both, in their accounts of the accident, had given only the name of the chauffeur, and suppressed that of the owner. I understood what an amount of social and financial pressure that feat had taken; and here was Carpenter about to spoil it! I laid my hand on his arm, saying: ”My friend, you were a guest in that car. You are not at liberty to talk about it.”
I expected to be argued with; but Carpenter apparently conceded my point, for he fell silent. It was the young reporter who spoke. ”You were in an auto accident, I judge? We had only one report of a death, and that was caused by Mrs. Stebbins' car. Were you in that?”
Then, as neither Carpenter nor I replied, he laughed. ”It doesn't matter, because I couldn't use the story. Mr. Stebbins is one of our 'sacred cows.' Good-day, and thank you.”
He started away; and suddenly all my terror of newspaper publicity overwhelmed me. I simply could not face the public as guardian of a Bolshevik! I shouted: ”Young man!” And the reporter turned, respectfully, to listen. ”I tell you, Mr. Carpenter is _not_ a radical! Get that clear!” And to the young man's skeptical half-smile I exclaimed: ”He's a Christian!” At which the reporter laughed out loud.
XXVII
We got to the Labor Temple, and found the place in a buzz of excitement, over what had occurred in front of Prince's last night.
I had suspected rough work on the part of the police, and here was the living evidence--men with bandages over cracked heads, men pulling open their s.h.i.+rts or pulling up their sleeves to show black and blue bruises. In the headquarters of the Restaurant Workers we found a crowd, jabbering in a dozen languages about their troubles; we learned that there were eight in jail, and several in the hospital, one not expected to live. All that had been going on, while we sat at table gluttonizing--and while tears were running down Carpenter's cheeks!
It seemed to me that every third man in the crowd had one of the morning's newspapers in his hand--the newspapers which told how a furious mob of armed ruffians had sought to break its way into Prince's, and had with difficulty been driven off by the gallant protectors of the law. A man would read some pa.s.sage which struck him as especially false; he would tell what he had seen or done, and he would crumple the paper in his hand and cry. ”The liars! The dirty liars!”--adding adjectives not suitable for print.
I realized more than ever that I had made a mistake in letting Carpenter get into this place. It was no resort for anybody who wanted to be patriotic, or happy about the world. All sorts of wonderful promises had been made to labor, to persuade it to win the war; and now labor came with the blank check, duly filled out according to its fancy--and was in process of being kicked downstairs. Wages were being ”liquidated,” as the phrase had it; and there was an endless succession of futile strikes, all pitiful failures. You must understand that Western City is the home of the ”open shop;” the poor devils who went on strike were locked out of the factories, and slugged off the streets; their organizations were betrayed by spies, and their policies dedeviled by provocateurs. And all the ma.s.s of misery resulting seemed to have crowded into one building this bright November morning; pitiful figures, men and women and even a few children--for some had been turned out of their homes, and had no place to go; ragged, haggard, and underfed; weeping, some of them, with pain, or lifting their clenched hands in a pa.s.sion of impotent fury. My friend T-S, the king of the movies, with all his resources, could not have made a more complete picture of human misery--nor one more fitted to work on the sensitive soul of a prophet, and persuade him that capitalist America was worse than imperial Rome.